Floodplain Management

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Flood Protection Information: CRS Activity 350

By Mitch Paine, CFM

From September 2014 Floodplain Management Today

Communities get phone calls from their residents, business owners, lenders, and realtors asking for basic information about floodplain management and often these individuals are interested to dive deeper into the topic to learn more. There are some important resources that all communities, not just those in CRS, can have on their websites or in their libraries.

CRS Activity 350 credits materials you put on your website and in your library. Your community website is a useful source of information that many residents, businesses, lenders, and realtors rely on. Many communities disseminate information about flood risk and floodplain management requirements via their websites. The City of Papillion has a very good website that you can view here: http://www.papillion.org/planning_floodplain_information.cfm.

CRS recommends and credits the following items on your website:

  1. Coverage of the topics covered by outreach projects such as:
    • Know your local flood hazard
    • Insure your property
    • Protect people from flood hazards
    • Protect property from flood hazards
    • Build responsibly
    • Protect natural floodplain functions
  2. Information on flood warning systems, flood safety, and evacuation routes
  3. Streamgage information - you can find out more about streamgages here: water.weather.gov/ahps
  4. Posting elevation certificates - so people can see elevation information on properties that have certificates on file

Communities should consider putting the following useful FEMA publications in their libraries. 9 points are currently available in CRS:

There are additional points available for locally-pertinent documents put in libraries. NDNR suggests communities consider putting the following into their libraries:

  • FEMA publication Homeowners Guide to Retrofitting: helps homeowners understand the various mitigation techniques that can be done to their individual property
  • Local hazard mitigation plan
  • Local floodplain ordinance
  • State floodplain management statutes
  • State minimum standards for floodplain management
  • Local Flood Insurance Study (available on msc.fema.gov)
  • US Army Corps of Engineers studies (if applicable)
  • Other locally-produced documents that discuss flood risk or drainage problems

For any of these publications, your community must enter them into the card catalog at your library and provide a sample entry for CRS documentation.

Both having a well-stocked library of floodplain resources and having a useful website adds to the information sources available for your community members to research ways to protect their property from flooding. CRS gives up to 105 points for all of these activities.

Need further information?

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